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About this project

Over 2.5 million registered Unity developers cannot be wrong. Unity is both powerful and versatile, with an vocal and enthusiastic user community. Why not use it to also create HTML5 games and have the best of both worlds?!

Unity is a cross-platform game engine, visual editor and framework that is used to build ‘native’ games for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and numerous other platforms.

Unfortunately, Unity’s power does not extend to HTML5 as there is currently no way to build content for that platform. There are other solid frameworks that can be used to create HTML5 games such as Construct 2, ImpactJS and PlayCanvas, but none combine power, versatility and ease of use with the strong support for which Unity is famous. At Frost.IO, we are leveraging our extensive experience to carefully craft the perfect mix that is the Frost Unity2HTML5 Toolkit!

Go Forth and Deploy Everywhere

Your HTML5 game or application can be deployed to multiple distribution channels including the Chrome Web Store, Amazon Appstore, Windows 8, Firefox Marketplace, Kik, Facebook, Playstation 4, Xbox One and Clay.IO for maximum audience exposure. You no longer need to box yourself into the tight restrictions, long development cycles and high user-acquisition costs of ‘those other app stores.’

Check out our Labs Page for a peek behind the scenes at a work-in-progress version of the Unity2HTML5 Toolkit including:

A video demonstration of the development workflow from Unity to HTML5, and

Our tiny team has been working for the last few months to prove that our framework is viable and performant on devices and browsers ranging from desktop to mobile. We now want to accelerate that effort with help from the Kickstarter community!

Our FrostOneJS Runtime for Javascript implements a large cross-section of the Unity API to run on modern browsers, including the implementation of MonoBehaviour scripting life cycles, Co-routines, GameObjects, and Components such as Sprite Renderer, RigidBody 2D, 2D Colliders, Cameras and Transforms.

There is no need to load a single, monolithic runtime into your game - the dependent modules are detected and only those are loaded at runtime.

The FrostOneJS Runtime will be made available as open-source on GitHub. We actively encourage the community to contribute to its development.

The Frost Unity2HTML5 Toolkit, when added to your Unity game project, will export to web formats when a HTML5 Build is initiated:

Scenes

GameObject and Prefabs

Sprite, Meshes, Textures, Sprite Atlases and Audio Clips

Collision Shapes and RigidBody Components

Game Scripts

Game scripting is accomplished with the de facto standard C# language that is supported by Unity. Enjoy the same tight code-test cycles through the Unity Editor, and upon building for HTML5, the Unity2HTML5 Toolkit cross-compiles your C# code to efficient Javascript that can be further optimized by modern browser implementations at runtime. All your useful C# 5.0 features are preserved including:

Inheritance

Type inference

Anonymous types

Generics
Lambdas and Anonymous Delegates

Constructor and Method Overloading

Get/Set Properties

Code in C#

...cross-compiled to Javascript

Our HTML5 render engine is targeted for 60 FPS and utilizes WebGL for blazing GPU-accelerated speed on browsers that support it, falling back on Canvas 2D when a WebGL context in unavailable.

We are sticklers for performance, which is why we are tuning our FrostOneJS Runtime to run well on browsers and devices across desktop and mobile devices. In addition to minimizing processing time per render loop iteration, we utilize Web Workers to take advantage of concurrency on multi-core CPUs. GC-related hits to the frame rate are largely avoided with object pools. Typed arrays and packed sprite atlases are used to help minimize the memory footprint at start-up time.

The Basic Toolkit, will be provided free and without royalties for all games created with it. It works in conjunction with Unity’s latest 2D features including Sprites, Sprite Packing, 2D Physics and Collisions. Use this to easily create scrolling platform games, top-down shooters, racers, puzzle games and more.

Risks and challenges

Our engineers have been in the games development industry for 20 years, from the largest developer/publisher to tiny indies. We've created workflow tools, back end services and games for platforms ranging from PCs to the latest mobile devices.

Our Unity2HTML5 Toolkit has already been in active development for a six months, and we have a functional workflow to prove it; capable of building a simple Unity project, with arts assets and scripts. The end result run wells in both desktop and mobile environments as you can see by our early live demo.

Having proven the tool chain works well, we now need to build out features in both the tool chain, cross-compiler and FrostOneJS engine.

FAQ

No, it is not a requirement. Just code in C# like you would normally do with Unity. Use those rich features such as classes, inheritance, generics, lambdas and top them off with a cherry; the C#-to-Javascript cross-compiler takes care of the rest. Don't get us wrong though, knowing Javascript is an asset, especially if you want to integrate with an existing Javascript framework or just want to learn the nuts and bolts of HTML5 game development.

Yes! You can call Javascript libraries such as jQuery, Knockout, Backbone or your favourite UI framework from your C# code. Writing a C#-wrapper for an existing Javascript library is trivial and we already provide a few common ones for jQuery, Knockout and direct DOM access. You should wrap your HTML5-specific code with #if UNITY_HTML5 / #endif to avoid compilation errors when running in the Unity Editor.

Not at this time, unless Unity wants to lend us a team of engineers for the next few months ;-) Complex features like the Mecanim animation system, Terrain system and Unity Networking are not planned, but could certainly be a possibility in the future. Our focus for the initial Basic Edition will be on the Unity feature-set that lets you create great 2D games.

Support this project

Select this reward

Pledge CA$ 10 or more
About $9

BASIC SUPPORTER.
Our undying gratitude will be etched into every copy of the Unity2HTML5 Toolkit and on the Frost.IO product website. Plus, you will receive early Beta releases prior to the initial public release of the Basic Toolkit.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge CA$ 2,499 or more
About $2,260

ELITE SUPPORTER.
All of the above. Plus, you will receive TWO Pro Toolkit licenses in total with FREE lifetime Toolkit upgrades, and highly-visible promotion of you, our Elite Supporter, at all trade shows and conferences that we attend.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge CA$ 7,990 or more
About $7,227

ELITE III SUPPORTER.
Same as Elite II Supporter, but with EIGHT Pro Toolkit licenses in total. Plus, you are invited to a 3-DAY personal technical support session at Frost.IO headquarters in beautiful Vancouver, Canada, and a $1000 USD Expedia voucher.